King of Assyria from 727 to 722 B.C.; successor, and possibly son, of Tiglath-pileser III. According to II Kings xvii. 3-6, he attacked Hoshea, King of Israel, and made him his vassal. Later Hoshea conspired with So (probably Sabako), King of Egypt, and did not send the customary tribute. Therefore the King of Assyria invaded Israel, put Hoshea in prison, attacked Samaria, and, after a siege of three years, took the city and carried Israel captive to Assyria. No records of Shalmaneser have been found among the Assyrian inscriptions. The Assyrian form of his name is "Shulmânuasharid"; and he was the fourth king of Assyria who bore that name. According to the Babylonian Chronicle (Schrader, "K. B." ii. 276), "he sat on the throne the 25th of Ṭebêtu. The city Samara'in [= Samaria] he destroyed. In his fifth year he died. Five years had he reigned in Assyria." The Assyrian eponym canon gives the names of the eponyms for the five years of his reign, and states that military expeditions were undertaken in the third, fourth, and fifth years; but the destination of these is not given. Some of the standard lion-weights found at Kalah bear his name.

Tiglath-pileser claims to have put Hoshea upon the throne, so that king's vassalage began beforeShalmaneser's accession. Sargon, the successor of Shalmaneser, and apparently the founder of a new dynasty, in one of his inscriptions accuses Shalmaneser of having deprived the city of Asshur of its ancient rights. He claims also to have taken Samaria, which probably fell into the hands of the besiegers about the time of or shortly after the death of Shalmaneser. The facts that this king had also invaded Philistia and that Sargon completed the subjugation of that country are probably referred to in Isa. xiv. 28-32 (H. P. Smith, "Old Testament History," p. 241).